But if you look over a little on the website page, they have 24 bars for $24.

I contact customer service and start chatting with them about this.

Basically, I wanted the difference refunded to me.

Surely, not a lot of money, but more the principle of it.

They are charging 2 different amounts for the very same thing!

The lady on the other end of the chat asks me to forward her the link for the product.

I comply.

She says, “You see that link is 2 boxes for $30!”

I say, “No, that’s just the primary link to the product, and it has 2 different prices for basically the exact same thing.”

She says, “On that link you sent it has 12 bars x 2, which is different than ordering 24 bars!”

I’m thinking, Oh really! What math class did she take in elementary school???

And then for good measure, she adds socking one to me:

“Truth Always Hurts!”

At this point, I couldn’t believe my chat “ears”.

Aside from her “truth” not being “the truth” in any universe…

I was in shock and said something like “How dare you. You are incredibly rude. Put your supervisor on.”

She says: “Well, my supervisor will tell you the same thing!”

I repeated once more: “Please let me speak to a supervisor.”

Finally when I got the supervisor, who was a more normal, reasonable person, and also could do simple arithmetic, she immediately apologizes issuing me a refund.

She asked if there was anything else she could assist with.

I asked, to confirm again, “Are you a supervisor?”

She responded affirmatively.

I asked her to review the chat with the prior customer service rep and asked, “Is this how you want your company represented to your customers?”

Needless to say, she was flabbergasted by what she saw from their outsourced “customer service” representative.

She assured me she was flagging the chat for review by management and that this outrageous behavior from this company representative would be addressed.

To me, it is amazing that our companies not only outsource the manufacture of our vital goods, but they also outsource customer service to people that barely seem to speak the language, can’t do basic math, and have zero customer service skills.

This does not bode well for American competitiveness–in the age of Coronavirus or at any other time.

I believe that this truth hurts much more than any company’s horrendous customer service. 😉

Thought this was a pretty good display with the Three Bears for holiday donations for Children’s National Hospital.

While it gets your attention (who sees three pink bears lite up on the street at night?), asking people with a small impersonal sign on the floor to remember to login and make the donation later isn’t very effective.

People act on the spot, especially when it’s an emotional appeal for charity for sick children that need help.

The children deserve for there to be a way for would be donors to actually give on the spot–where they can swipe or tap their credit card, write a check, or drop some money in for giving.

Later, later, later…and unfortunately, it may never happen for the Children.

Come on–it’s the new roaring 2020s–we can create some urgency and convenience and do better than this! 😉

I am marveling at the Genius of Amazon and Jeff Bezos but also concerned about their future direction.

Traditionally, they have invested for the long-haul!

For years, Amazon never made a dime, actually operating at a loss.

But all the time making long-term investments in infrastructure (warehouses, supply chain, logistics, etc.) and in customer acquisition.

Their great selection, reasonable pricing, free shipping, and easy return policy lured hundreds of millions of people to drop the brick-and-mortar stores and even other online retailers to go Amazon all the way.

Most people I know get virtually everything and anything on Amazon these days.

Of course, the fear always was that Amazon would become such a dominant player and monopoly that no one else could compete.

For a long time, they didn’t even charge sales tax!

It seems people can’t even imagine not having Amazon–where in the world would they shop and get all their stuff in 2-days or less (Prime Customers) and still be able to return all the crap they don’t even want.

So here is the rub.

Now that Amazon is so dominant, guess what? They are raising the Prime Rates and cutting back on returns–with customers actually being banned for returning too much.

Ah, the lure, bait and switch.

Amazon got us all as their slave customers–and we let them and love them for it.

And after they snared us with all the convenience and security of being able to return stuff, they pull the rug and what can you do, but cry foul?

I love Amazon for their genius and what they have done for eCommerce, but I don’t like that they’ve built in a sense a dark empire to prey on their loyal customer base.

Mr. Bezos, here is my message to you…

Please stay true to your ideals of customer-centricity and long-term investment in the company that has been the foundation for what you have built into such a retail juggernaut.

Keep valuing your customers and serving them well and not trading them in for short-term profit gain.

In the end, that is a winning strategy that won’t land you in either regulatory hell and/or antitrust action to then force you to bend your knee or your ultimate breakup.

Remember, you have one chance to make the right decision for Amazon or I fear that it’s not product returns that you’ll be for long worrying about. 😉

We are recklessly giving up control of the Internet, specifically of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which oversees the Domain Names Servers (including all the DNS root zones like .com, .net, .gov, etc.) that handle all the addressing of our Internet traffic.

Despite repeated cautions from many in industry, academia, and government not to do this, we are moving ahead anyway with tomorrow being the transition date!

Why would we give away anything, let alone control over the awesome technological power of the Internet that we depend on in some way for virtually every activity we do these days?

Rather than defend the Internet that the USA invented (specifically DARPA), here we go again in fear and weakness going in the wrong direction–surrendering and giving up control of the web.

If you love the Internet and recognize how important this asset is to us, then like an FCC Commissioner said this week, you should be worried about what the h*ck we are doing to the freedom (vice censorship) of the Internet and to ourselves . 😉

From the bed and couch to the computer and gym, like hamsters on the wheel of triviality, we might as well package ourselves up in the big eBay box and send ourselves to outer space–but only as long as we can get Internet access there. 😉